April 30 (Punjab Khabarnama) : Solo Leveling, a Korean webtoon to turn manhwa, was rapidly rocketed to popularity. This happened in January 2024, when it made its characters on Crunchyroll’s premium streaming service.
Now, its fame has gone beyond normalcy, and it is ranked 6th on Crunchyroll’s list in terms of the Most Famous Series based on user ratings, surpassing even long-standing anime franchises like Attack on Titan and My Hero Academia.
Just two months ago, Reddit’s anime community compiled an intricate ranking of Crunchyroll’s top 300 anime series based on ratings. This list revealed Solo Leveling’s remarkable ascent, with the series initially sitting just below Attack on Titan at seventh place.
Solo Leveling has since closed the gap and now stands as Crunchyroll’s sixth most popular title.
Here is the original top 10 ranked anime series on Crunchyroll by number of ratings, as of March 2024:
One Piece
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
Jujutsu Kaisen
Chainsaw Man
Spy x Family
Attack on Titan
Solo Leveling
My Hero Academia
Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation
Naruto Shippuden
Solo Leveling wasn’t able to crack Japan’s audiences
Unlike many other anime, Solo Leveling didn’t actually start as a manga but rather as a web novel by South Korean author Chu-Gong.
This is a dark fantasy single serialized on KakaoPage which began in 2016 and ended in 2018, the protagonist of this work is Jinwoo, a young man who eternally levels up after a disastrous dungeon raid.
The anime adaptation by A-1 Pictures premiered on January 7, co-produced by Crunchyroll.
The novelty of Solo Leveling in being consumed by people from all over the world was not left out of criticism because of its themes being too dark and characters falling in battle just like with Attack on Titan.
The show received mixed reviews in Japan in 2024, ranking it 35th. However, it did immensely well on Crunchyroll commissioned fans around the world.
The Solo Leveling anime is available to stream on Crunchyroll and Prime Video, while Chu-Gong’s original web novel is accessible in English through Yen On, an imprint of Yen Press.
